


To Take Those Steps I Never Have

by Avali



Series: We Are the Light [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Needs A Hug, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, Space family, Vignette
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 00:57:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21128153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avali/pseuds/Avali
Summary: Kanan took one last breath, his hand hovering right by the control panel. Ezra definitely deserved better in a master, but it wasn’t like there was an abundance of Jedi just hanging around the galaxy, waiting on an orphaned kid to need them, right? He’d do his best. It’s all he could do....in which Kanan Jarrus struggles with feelings of self-worth after taking on Ezra Bridger as a padawan, and the two of them realize that it's in each other that they'll find healing.





	To Take Those Steps I Never Have

All of the fear and anxiety he’d felt building made perfect sense to him as the magnitude of what he did finally hit him.

“You can’t hide here forever, Kanan,” Hera said, the look on her face a blend of amused and definitely not impressed.

“I’m not hiding,” Kanan frowned. “I’m making this door to this control panel stop squeaking. You’ve been complaining about it for ages.”

“Right,” Hera rolled her eyes. 

Kanan Jarrus knew she was right. She usually always was, and he was never one for being contrary just for the sake of it, but admitting she was right in this case involved leaving his easy job of oiling hinges (instant results, basic task) to the far more daunting one waiting for him in the cargo bay.

Padawan.

Oh, the Force had made it more than clear to him that this was the right choice, the only choice, the culmination of years of wondering just what it was about Lothal that got under his skin and wouldn’t go away. 

He’d snapped the lightsaber together without a second thought, deflected bolts like he was still Caleb Dume. It had taken every ounce of self-control not to glance over his shoulder afterwards, to wait for approval from his master like he was still a child. And then he’d offered to train the kid, like he had any business training a padawan at all.

“Go,” Hera prompted again, and he sighed, walking out into the hallway.

“Hey, Kanan!” Sabine grinned, lifting a hand in a wave on her way to her room. “Ezra’s waiting for you in the cargo bay.”

“I’m headed there now,” he said, opening a closet long enough to put the oil away. It was messy again--the rest of the crew lived under the mentality that proper closet organization was “open it up, toss it in,” which would have driven both Master Depa and all his teachers at the creche crazy. Neatness and organization had been drilled in him since infancy, apparently. Maybe he could start by passing that lesson on to Ezra.

How would he train this kid to be a Jedi? Had he forgotten how not a Jedi he himself was? Even with his drifter days behind him, Master Yoda would have hardly let him stand before the council and take his trials to become a knight. Force, his time with Hera a couple of nights ago would have disqualified him instantly, and that didn’t even take into consideration how attached he was to this crew. He would have done anything for any of them, even Chopper.

He hesitated outside of the cargo bay, waiting to open the door. A thousand excuses raced through his mind--he’s not a true knight, he’s not a real Jedi, he’s just not ready.

“Master, what have I done?” he murmured to the recycled air.

###

Are any of us ever really ready to train a padawan?

After so many years of time to herself, serving only the Order as a member of the Council, it is...difficult...for Depa Billaba to manage her time in a way that feels conducive to the attention she knows her padawan deserves. Still, when Master Yoda and Master Windu asked her to take on a padawan learner, she didn’t hesitate. After all, Master Windu had trained her as a padawan...if he felt she was ready, then she was ready.

She’s been cleared for battle, but even still, the old wounds still give her difficulty. She refuses to let anyone see this, although she thinks Caleb might have noticed a few times.

It’s one of those rare occasions that they are back at the Temple. She knows that field training is necessary for a padawan’s training, but she hates that Caleb won’t have the same experiences she did. Yes, her time out on missions with Master Windu was, of course, highly important to her training, but there was a certain amount of camaraderie that was built as she worked in the common area of his quarters, studying Jedi history, things that Caleb does not get to experience as much simply because they are so frequently called to battle.

She wishes she could give him time to find his own interests, but instead, he reviews the report she has compiled from their most recent engagement in the Outer Rim, reviewing the decisions they made and analyzing why they were good, or whether a better one could have been made in hindsight.

He is delightfully good at it, but it still hurts her, much like the echoes of old injuries.

“Master?” Caleb asks, at her side in an instant as she stands up and loses her balance. In the thick of battle, she is fine, but after sitting for extended periods, it is difficult for her to move.

“I am fine, Caleb,” she responds shortly, hoping she doesn’t look too tired. He certainly does. Has he been eating properly? She isn’t even sure. By the Force, she is a Jedi Master and a presiding member of the Jedi Council, and she is tired of struggling with the basics of this, like remembering whether she’s made sure her padawan has eaten or slept enough. (Come to think of it, when was the last time she had a proper meal? Slept for a full eight hours? She is ready for this war to be over.) He looks at her one last time before retreating back to the table, and she can feel through the bond between them that her words have stung, even though she didn’t intend for that effect at all.

She takes a few steps on her own, regaining her balance and mobility, and then walks over to the chair, placing her hands on his shoulders and forcing down the twinge of pain that threatens to run through them both as he flinches at her touch.

“What’s wrong, Caleb?”

He doesn’t answer at first. She’s made him copies of all her files, and, as such, he’s annotated all of them with his own reflections and notes, arrows drawing connections to things that she wonders if she’s missed. He doesn’t look up at her, but she makes no attempt to move, and finally, he sighs.

“I feel like I hold you back, Master,” he finally says, zooming in on a particular part of her report. She purses her lips, trying to figure out the source of his frustration. “You were held back there because you had to help me.”

He’s a little slow on hiding his guilt from her in the bond they share, and she feels the punch of it before he manages to rein it in.

“Caleb,” she says, gently taking him by the elbow and pulling him to his feet. She’s taller than him for now, but she knows that if they both survive this war, she’ll be looking up at him soon enough. She walks over to the couch and sits down, patting the cushion for him to sit next to her, which he reluctantly does, only after glancing back at his work on the table. “I am your master, Caleb Dume,” she reminds him, staring into those bright turquoise eyes and wondering what the future holds for this young Jedi. “Someday, you will have your own padawan, and you’ll understand.”

“Understand what, master?” He crosses his arms, staring down at his knees. She places a hand on them, and he finally looks up at her.

“That it is an honor to protect. You are not holding me back, Caleb. You are my padawan, and I would die for you if that is what it took to protect you,” she says, and something unbidden in the Force hums between them both. “There is so much more to life than this war, and I wish you could experience it now. But as long as we are trapped in these entanglements, we will continue to protect each other. Because,” she holds up a hand, and the datapad sails neatly through the air to her. It’s a frivolous use of the force, one Master Windu would chide her for, but she doesn’t want to risk this moment with her limited mobility. She scrolls through his notes, going to another section, one Caleb has simply annotated as ‘not fast enough.’ “If I remember correctly, your only flaw here was jumping on the back of a B2 to misdirect a shot in my blind spot, yes?”

“Right, but that’s not the same--”

“It is, Caleb,” she closes her eyes, leaning back on the couch. After a moment, she feels him shifting a little, settling in too. “We protect that which matters to us. As a member of the council, I could have refused a padawan, Caleb. I chose you because I sensed potential in you. That does not make it easier for either of us, but that choice is what matters. I am in this with you until the very end.”

“Even when I have my own padawan someday?” he smirks, and she smiles. There is a certain enjoyment in imagining the difficulty a future padawan will give him. Master Windu had always told her with a laugh that the trouble she brought him would be returned by her own padawan someday, and he hadn’t been wrong at all. What kind of future Jedi would Caleb Dume train?

“Even then, Caleb,” she says quietly. “I, like the Force, am always with you, my padawan.”

###

Kanan took one last breath, his hand hovering right by the control panel. Ezra definitely deserved better in a master, but it wasn’t like there was an abundance of Jedi just hanging around the galaxy, waiting on an orphaned kid to need them, right?

He’d do his best. It’s all he could do. The Force would be with him, and he’d make the best of it.

He felt the tiniest of tugs in the Force, somewhere between his heart and his stomach, and jerked around.

There was no one behind him, not any of his new family nor his old master, offering approval.

Still, he wasn’t alone.

Kanan pressed the button to the cargo bay, and went in to train his padawan.


End file.
